


Would You Let Me In, Should I Cry Sanctuary?

by Nighthaunting



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: AU happenings, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Tranquil Cullen through the games, somewhat cullen's pov, tranquil cullen, vague allusions to everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6593374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nighthaunting/pseuds/Nighthaunting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Kinloch Hold, it is decided that it would be most merciful to render Cullen Tranquil.</p><p>(Knight-Commander Greagoir has heard complaints of the distant echo of a man screaming keeping the Novices awake at night.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Would You Let Me In, Should I Cry Sanctuary?

**Author's Note:**

> Poor, poor Cullen. If things seem OOC or deviate from what actually happened in the games, please accept them as just being reactions to Tranquil Cullen, or repercussions of Cullen's being Tranquil on the game-state, because I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.
> 
> Written as a fill for the Dragon Age Kink Meme: "Can be his choice, can be a choice made for him, just give me a Tranquil Cullen fill, emphasis on the Rite itself and his behavior afterwards, maybe some companion reactions."
> 
> Title from 'The King Must Die' by Elton John (the Live In Australia version)

Cullen’s life ended at Kinloch Hold as far as most are concerned. Everyone knows the tale: blood magic and demons, Templars trapped, tortured, and slain.

Knight-Commander Greagoir says it’s a miracle Cullen survived at all. He speaks of the shield of faith and the will of the Maker and has nothing but praise for Knight Rutherford and his steadfast resistance in the face of perils that undid more Knights than anyone wants to think of. Knight-Commander Greagoir is the one who offered Cullen the brand; calling it a kindness, a reprieve from the screaming nightmares and formless terror that had the healers keeping Cullen in the infirmary, quieted and away from everyone else.

It was not known whether Cullen was offered a choice, or merely the illusion of dignified acceptance. Greagoir was taken aside and told that none of the healers had ever seen or dealt with a case of demonic exposure this intense or traumatic before. Warned that unless something happened to change things, Ser Cullen might well end up being possessed despite himself, and attracting demons to the Circle through the Fade.

(The Knight-Commander has heard complaints of the distant echo of a man screaming keeping the Novices awake at night.)

The branding itself is a non-event. Cullen takes the rite in the infirmary, Greagoir wielding the brand himself. When Knight Cullen Rutherford is released to resume his duties, he has a sunburst brand burning red on his forehead. His hair was shorn close to his scalp by the healers as they tended to his fevering recovery, and there is nothing at all to disguise what has happened.

(There are no more screams in the night.)

Cullen is polite and pleasant; unfalteringly dutiful, if perhaps more literal at times than is necessarily warranted. Carroll once makes the mistake of asking about what happened directly enough to warrant an answer and ended up retching after Cullen dreamily described how the demons began to dismember Knights for sport.

Cullen is reassigned from regular patrol after First Enchanter Irving tells Greagoir that he frightens the Mages. He’s given the special task of minding his fellow tranquils, the unnerving shepherd at the head of a small flock of sunburst brands. Greagoir had attempted to made the assignment sound like something else, but Cullen now lacks a certain tactfulness and when he asked placidly if the Knight-Commander wasn’t just putting all of his tranquils in one place Greagoir grimaced but had to admit it.

Knight-Commander Greagoir’s words of praise have died on his tongue. The Templars look at him askance when he tries to string together some platitudinous phrase about Ser Cullen, and Greagoir can’t bring himself to lie so boldly as to say all is well.

Cullen’s hair has grown out, longer than before. It falls in soft curls over his brand like a forelock. At first the other Knights tried to encourage it with compliments, but stopped when Cullen smiled–placidly, in dreamy agreement–and told them he understood they liked it because it covers the brand. The sunburst that rides Cullen’s brow has faded to white, and despite his curls it still peeks through from time to time, as though it was at all possible to ignore.

No one wants to admit that they wish tranquility had made Cullen less observant. If anything he notices more now, freed from the tendency to blush and stare at his feet in embarrassment.

(Knight-Commander Greagoir has heard complaints from every Templar and Mage who knew Cullen before. None of them can stand the sight of him anymore. The Knight-Commander drafts a letter to Kirkwall, asking if there was room there for a very special Knight.)

Cullen cannot be trusted to travel alone. Greagoir assigns him a chaperone to escort him to Kirkwall, and gives them enough gold to secure the fastest passage possible. Greagoir’s letter was vague in details but effusive in praise. The Knight who escorted Cullen to Kirkwall delivers him directly to Knight-Commander Meredith’s office. He gives her Knight-Commander Greagoir’s second letter, meant to fully explain Cullen’s situation, and to discharge him officially into Meredith’s command–as bureaucratic as possible a way to say “don’t send him back”–and fidgets awkwardly while Meredith reads it, glancing back and forth from the letter to Cullen’s serene face. Without comment, she writes a letter of thanks in reply to Greagoir and dismisses the Knight who brought Cullen to Kirkwall.

Knight-Commander Meredith asks Cullen to show her his brand. She asks questions until Cullen has told her everything that happened in the tower in perfect detail, in an even voice with the most peaceful of expressions. He tells her of how he was induced to take the brand. He tells her of the discomfited Knights left behind in Ferelden. Meredith listens, praises Cullen for his service, and decides that what Kirkwall really needs is a tranquil for its Knight-Captain.

There is uproar in the Gallows when Meredith announces it. She has already assigned Cullen Knight Samson as roommate and minder, and informed him of his duties, and taken his solemn oath to uphold and protect the Circle. The First Enchanter and all the Mages are horrified, but hide it carefully. Meredith wields the tale of Cullen’s torture and branding like a knife, and before a week is out everyone in the Gallows knows it.

The difficulty of having a tranquil Knight-Captain is that his eyes are unfailingly open. Cullen walks the nightly rounds sometimes, because he remembers he used to Before, and one of the healers looked at him with obvious pity in their eyes and told him to try and stick to routines. Cullen walks the nightly rounds and catches Ser Alrik creeping from the room of a Novice Mage. When Alrik smirks and swaggers and spins an explanation Cullen asks him calm, logical questions until the excuse unravels. When Ser Alrik becomes defensive Cullen notices, distantly, and reacts not at all, other than to push open the Novitiate’s door wide enough to hear the sounds of quiet weeping coming from inside. A terrified face is all that can be seen in the light coming through the open door, and Cullen smiles placidly–because he remembers from Before that smiling is friendly–and asks the Mage if Alrik hurt them. When a broken voice whispers, “Yes,” Cullen nods, once, turns to Ser Alrik–sputtering with fury, and denial, and, most damning, threats against a liar–and draws his sword, putting the blade cleanly through Ser Alrik’s throat before the man realizes what’s happened.

Cullen nods to the Mage again, shuts the door, and takes Alrik’s corpse to the infirmary. When Meredith arrives, red-faced with fury, and asks what the bloody hell happened, Cullen looks at her with a blank face and says, dreamily, that he swore to protect. The Knight-Commander’s fury falters. By morning there is no Templar in the Gallows who doesn’t shift uncomfortably and avert their eyes when Knight-Captain Cullen is near.

(Yet none of them, even now, look at Cullen and notice the the sword in favor of the brand, peeking out from behind his forelock of curls.)

The Mage girl is found and branded, and when Cullen does his rounds through the tranquil wing they greet each other politely and with blank, expressionless faces.

Garrett Hawke meets Knight-Captain Cullen by mistake. There are strict orders for anyone other than Cullen to greet visitors, but Cullen is leading drills in his endlessly patient, unfaltering monotone, and clearly of rank enough to be worth talking to. Hawke attempts to banter with him, brow creasing as each remark slides off of Cullen without catching any reaction. When a stray breeze blows Cullen’s forelock away from his brow and reveals his brand Hawke goes quiet, thanks him for his time, and doesn’t stop running from the moment he’s left the Gallows until he’s back in Lowtown.

The only person in Kirkwall who is unfalteringly pleasant to Cullen is Raleigh Samson. Once, and only once, does Cullen tell Samson that his self before the brand would probably have appreciated this. Samson gets a look on his face like he’s been struck and Cullen doesn’t see him again for three days.

When Hawke confronts Meredith at the Gallows Cullen isn’t there. Samson had been expelled from the Order for sneaking love letters–so harmless Cullen hadn’t understood the logic of it other than Meredith’s growl of ‘dangerous precedent’ and ‘corruption’–but he hadn’t gone far. When he pulls Cullen aside and tells him in no uncertain terms that they need to leave Cullen asks why, and Samson looks helplessly at Maddox and breathes easier when Maddox and Cullen begin to logic back and forth but follow Samson away from Kirkwall.

Cullen asks again, why, later, and Samson tells him that this is friendship with something in his face that could be called wistfulness. Cullen remembers enough of friendship from Before that he accepts it, and doesn’t ask how precisely fortuitous Samson’s timing was, or where he got his small stash of supplies and lyrium potions to nurse Cullen through the withdrawals.

 _The Order has betrayed us_ is too monolithic a statement for Cullen to simply accept, but also so broad that the questions of how and why are difficult to come by. Samson is enough, for now, to believe.

(And in truth, when Cullen remembers, he can conjure up the the phantom thoughts of himself Before; the gut-twist and roil when Greagoir told him to accept the brand with dignity and rest assured that no demon could take any more advantage of his damaged state.)

As they travel Samson changes, and soon there is a goal that Cullen doesn’t know but watches Samson strive for. Cullen doesn’t entirely realize that Samson has gathered so many Templars until he sees Carroll again. He smiles placidly and greets him, and watches Carroll recognize him and blanch pale.

Cullen receives nothing but the greatest respect from the ‘Red Templars’, all of them knowing, somehow, about Kinloch and after without him having to tell. He doesn’t mind, can extrapolate how it happened: there are those here who know his story, and logically there can only be so many Templars with sunburst brands.

He spends most of his time poring over maps for Samson, bloodlessly assessing tactical situations Samson poses for him. There is someone named Corypheus, that Cullen never meets, and a woman named Calpernia, who is disgusted by his existence. She never says as much, but Cullen is observant, and his silence makes him easily forgotten.

Samson tells Cullen that he urgently needs Cullen to accompany him to a temple in the wilds.  It is hot, and stifling, and Samson leads Cullen to a well and bids him drink while strangers–enemies, he’s been told–batter the door behind them. Cullen knows this was meant to be Calpernia’s duty, but she is gone, a traitor, Samson says. There is no one to drink but Cullen, and so he does.

When the door bursts open and Samson engaged in battle, Cullen stands back. When Samson is defeated, Cullen surrenders.

The Inquisitor is brightly furious about everything, and as her companions argue and squabble over the well, she eyes Cullen stonily as he kneels in surrender. There are voices, whispering, and Cullen hears them, but he is tranquil and they cannot be demons. The whispers tell him they come from the well, and this is reasonable enough. Cullen tells the Inquisitor he drunk from the well.

They take him and Samson to their fortress of Skyhold in chains.

Cullen’s plain black armour; his simple, razor-sharp sword; and his markless shield are taken from him in the dungeons. His hair has grown while following Samson into a thicket of soft curls, falling into his eyes and hiding his brand. If he doesn’t speak it can be impossible to tell he is tranquil.

They ask him if he’s taken the Red Lyrium and he says ‘no’.

They ask him if he will provide testimony at his judgement and he says ‘yes’.

They tell him that they’re deciding what to do with him.

Before his judgement, Cullen is taken from his cell and given plain, clean clothes to wear and a basin of water to wash with. The guards don’t look at him as he scrubs and dries and changes, not even when they clap him back into his manacles and lead him to the great hall.

No one looks at him more than out of the corner of their eyes until he’s led before the Inquisitor. She is waiting for him on her throne, and when she looks up to begin the judgement she sees his face. With his damp hair pushed back from his face, Cullen’s brow is clear, as is the pale sunburst brand that crests it.

The Inquisitor stops short, and her advisors trace her stunned gaze to the delicate scar the brand left Cullen. He stands still, a placid, dreamy expression on his face as he waits with infinite patience; until the Inquisitor rouses herself to action and orders Cullen be taken away for a more private interview.

In the small crowd allowed into the hall for his judgement, Cullen catches sight of Garrett Hawke, white-faced and grimacing.

By the time Cullen is brought to what seems to be the Inquisitor’s private study, his hair has started to fall back across his forehead. The Inquisitor and some carefully-chosen members of her inner circle–and Hawke–are waiting for him, each of them curious but trying to obscure whatever sickening fascination they have. Cullen’s brand peeks pale and bright from behind his drying curls, and he watches their eyes shift to and away from it as he waits.

The Inquisitor asks, neutrally, to tell her how he became tranquil.

Cullen does, in perfect detail.

 


End file.
